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Now the official first thought when hearing “strategic opportunity grants and scholarships” is that all grants and scholarships are alike. Wrong! Scholarships and grants are split up into categories and sub-categories; this is where students start to become confused about which grants and scholarships to apply to. Many students will encounter grants or scholarships that they do not fit with the requirements, qualifications, or criteria requested of the applications who apply.

There will be a general breakdown from the category to the sub-categories just to give a better view of how these Opportunity Grants and Scholarships work.

First thing is first, what are Strategic Opportunity Grants & Scholarships?

Grant opportunity is defined as supporting specific or specific location areas with a mid-sized that support an organization’s program that has alignment with or involved within a foundation’s strategic priorities. This means if a foundation only has a strategic priority around education, community wellness, or economic security… then a student would have to apply for a grant that follows those precise guidelines. Opportunity grants also help low-income students enrolled in approved career training programs pay for tuition and books.

To make it even less complicated, a few examples and real strategic opportunity grants are listed below:

• Rhode Island’s Children Education Success Opportunity Grant – Where the focus is placed on students in high-need communities. The grant involves individuals who want to help improve a community that may lack educational success or teachers who are desparately needed for the well-being of K-12 grades.
• Calgary Foundation Opportunity Grant HR Organization – Providing much needed time-sensitive opportunities to an outside expertise. Which would bring to the organization an order to build capacity, strengthen board governance, conduct HR assessments, or support professional development.
• Pierce College District Opportunity Grant – Strictly for Washington state students who enrolled in an associate degree program, low-income family, and students who have held a 2.0 G.P.A. or higher.

Specifically for Pierce College District in Washington state, these are what the programs look like, that would be able to obtain an Opportunity Grant:

• Accounting (Puyallup campus only)
• Applied Business
• Business information technology (BTECH)
• Certified Nursing Assistant (Puyallup campus only)
• Computer Network Engineering (Puyallup campus only)
• Construction Management (Fort Steilacoom campus only)
• Criminal Justice (Fort Steilacoom campus only)
• Database Management (Puyallup campus only)
• Digital Design (Fort Steilacoom campus only)
• Early Childhood Education
• Emergency Medical Services
• Health Informatics and Integrated Technology (Puyallup campus only)
• Kinesiology (Fort Steilacoom campus only)
• Medical billing
• Nursing (Puyallup campus only)
• Pre-nursing
• Project Management
• Social Service Mental Health (Fort Steilacoom campus only)
• Veterinary Technology (Fort Steilacoom campus only)
• Pre-Veterinary Technology

Just to give that in-depth preview of what college categories are and the sub-categories (which are specific programs that immediately qualify for an Opportunity Grant)

• University of Hawaii West O‘ahu Opportunity Grant – A student must demonstrate financial need by completing the FAFSA, be a resident of Hawaii and be enrolled at least at half-time (6-credits) as a classified undergraduate student.
• Gates Family Foundation – Located in the state of Colorado, students must become part of the Gates Family Foundation program or one that they offer to become committed to playing a strategic role in finding creative solutions that create opportunities for youth, support stewardship of the state’s extraordinary natural inheritance, and improve the lives of all Coloradans.
• Robert Carr Fund – This is for previous applicants or new who wish to become part of community to bring awareness with a or involved within this movements leadership, to ensure a stronger, continuous community-led and rights-based response to HIV. Applicants were encouraged to devote careful consideration to building partnerships to drive new and more powerful results from this investment.
• Library Mini Grant Program – Which happens to be open to all faculty and staff from the Smathers Libraries community. The program was originally designed to help provide a supportive environment for those who wish to gain experience conceptualizing, writing, and administering grant projects.
• Horizon Foundation Strategic Health Initiative Grant – This grant was created to help advance awareness within a community to continue to build a better future and allow residents to use their power to advance issues.
• Horizon Foundation Racial Equity Collaborative Grants – The individuals picked will be elected to work collaboratively on a joint equity-related policy within the county.
• University of Lethbridge Strategic Opportunities Fund – Only full-time students of this university are eligible to apply. Matter of factg, the students must also be faculty members who work at the university part-time. All applicants will have a series of documents and research papers that they would need to submit throughout a timeline of advancement to see what part of the funding grant they have become eligble for.
• M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust Grant – This grant involves capital growth where this trust routinuely makes grants that support construction, renovation, land purchase and other capital projects. This grant can be applied by an indivdual who already has a business or a business development plan in motion. This is one of the rare occaisions where a grant is not necessarily meant for a student only.
• Spark Opportunity Grant – This opportunity grant aims to help charter schools advance the real estate development and financial planning for new facilities. Essentially this grant is for students to apply as well as for teachers. Remarkably this can be applied with no real age limit.
• CFI Innovation Fund Opportunity Grant – Only researchers applying for this fund must be able to demonstrate how this is project represents an important opportunity for NB and quantify the economic benefit. That is only researchers can fully apply for this opportunity grant. Not students.
• Weingart Foundation’s F.Y. 2021 Program Plan – This grant is for those who wish to join a program plan that is ever evolving with the certain systematic unfoldment within our society. With focus on socioeconomic injustice along with the branches that are connected to this un-just problematic turn of events that has shown itself throughout the pandemic. Essentially this is for a law-based degree or associates that intend on progressing forward for this type of Master’s certification.
• Municipal Technical Assistance Grant Program – Zoning and planning which involves city locations the ever continued nature with griding zones which either over populate or gentrify, meaning available housing ceases to exist… unless a grant like this one from New Hampshire can help create affordable housing units.

As you can see from the last handful of opportunity grants, they can exist for individuals such as researchers, business owners, and more.

Strategic Opportunity Scholarships

What is the difference between strategic opportunity grants and scholarships, specifically in this section we will look at scholarships more closely:

• College Board Opportunity Scholarships – program is open to students regardless of their family income and citizenship status. Students don’t have to write an essay, fill out an application, or have a specific GPA or test scores. Involved is a set of opportunities such as filling out a college list that can actually earn students or faculty a small reward amount which acts as a scholarship.
• Utah System of Higher Education Opportunity Scholarship – This scholarship is to be applied to by senior high school students. The main requirements will be to complete 1 Advanced Placement (AP class), International Baccalaureate (IB class), or Concurrent Enrollment (CE) course in each of the core areas of high school graduation.
• Idaho Opportunity Scholarship – This is a needs-based scholarship where the G.P.A. must have maintained a high school score of 2.7 or higher. For this scholarship this is a renewable one where a student can apply and re-win this scholarship at least 3 separate times.
• Central Piedmont Community College Opportunity Scholarship – This scholarship provides one on one tutoring and teaching, along with this scholarship covering the entire full cost of attendance to Central Piedmont. This means full coverage of all tuition, books, and fees for a total of two years.
• The Gateways Opportunity Scholarship – Will end up paying a portion of tuition for eligible professionals working in early care and education or school-age programs who want to earn college credit, credentials, or degrees. Early childhood development students will beneift greatly from this opportunity scholarship.
• Huntsmen School Opportunity Scholarship – assists with the cost of participation in Huntsman School programs and opportunities such as: Huntsman School Global Learning Experience, Unpaid International Internship (Students are responsible for securing their own internship), Academic conferences to present research with a Huntsman School faculty mentor, Study Abroad semester exchange, or Huntsman School Career exploration trip (National). Where the official eligbile students must still be undergraduates who have a 2.0. maintained G.P.A. without too much fluctuation.
• Northeastern Illinois University Golden Opportunity Scholarship – Required within the application would be an individual who is admitted to Northeastern as an incoming full-time freshman enrolled in at least 12 credit hours per semester. Must have an annual adjusted gross income of $75,000 or less, this means family total annual income not individual. Must be a Illinois resident who attended an Illinois high school.
• Washington State Opportunity Scholarship – to aid with students who aim to strengthen their own pathways to college and career advancement for Seattle Promise scholars pursuing jobs in the trades, Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) and health care.
• Colorado Opportunity Scholarship Initiative (COSI) – As part of the already existing T.E.A.C.H. Colorado Scholarship Program this is an opportunity aimed at early childhood development works who have been affected by the pandemic. And in that regard that means the shortage of staff members who have been directly impacted by current world events.
• Winston-Salem College Guarantee Oppotunity Scholarship Program – a last-dollar grant that will combine with financial aid packages to cover tuition, fees, extra course and lab fees, textbooks, and other course materials for eligible students.
• Klein College Global Opportunities Scholarship Programs – This specific scholarship program (there are several but Klein’s College has only one) is reserved 60 percent of its scholarship funds to assist students with financial need. The $5,000 amount is awarded and determined by Global Opportunities in consultation with Temple’s financial aid office.
• Lake County Opportunity Scholarship – Allows an adequate opportunity and provides opportunities for students to transfer to another educational institution based upon the School Grade performance of their eligible school.
• Fairhaven Opportunity Scholarship – This opportunity scholarships does have a renewable capability that has an upward amount of $1000. This has become an annual award given to one newly admitted or currently enrolled Fairhaven student who has demonstrated leadership relevant to BIPOC issues. And only BIPOC issues solely, that is the point of this scholarship opportunity.

The subtle difference between an opportunity grant and a scholarship… is that with a grant, individuals who simply wish to make a difference in their community can easily apply. Typically, a student could apply for an opportunity grant however, this may be more for an individual who has seen a portion of their community suffer from the recent and ongoing pandemic struggle. When an opportunity scholarship is to benefit the furthering a low-income student’s education that may otherwise be in jeopardy. This is not to say a student who comes from a low-income family can’t apply for a regular scholarship from a private or public university… however, for extra college funding an “opportunity scholarship” can cover full fees or any extra coverage that may not be covered.

Education is Opportunity

The big idea behind the “opportunity grant and scholarship” is that in one way or another, it’s a privilege to acquire even funds to attend a higher education university or vocational school. However, some students or adults struggle to acquire enough to push forward with their education. That’s why a lot of the opportunity scholarships are based around low educated areas within a community, low-income families, or even areas that have suffered greatly from rising rent.

The idea of scholarships and grants being the best way to obtain college funding without paying out of pocket is honestly, the best route to go. For anyone who is in need of even more substantial income that can only come from reward money, these opportunity grants and scholarships should really be looked at. No matter the age limit, opportunity grants, and scholarships tend to have an all-ages requirement. Matter of fact, the ratio for teachers who applied for opportunity grants increased by 46% in 2020.

Both Are Equal Enough to Apply For Both

Yes, an individual can apply for an opportunity scholarship and an individual opportunity grant. Matter of fact, an individual or student may be able to apply to a single foundation’s grant or scholarship list if one is provided. The equality of both grants and scholarships in this section of the application process allows students to not worry about paying out of pocket or being filled with dread for simply not being able to pay for their dream. Instead, the government, a foundation, or trust has set up enough reserved spaces to pay off in full multiple students or adults higher education. This has begun to vastly improve education sectors around the world that once suffered from a lack of resources before.

Relatively New Occurrence

Opportunity grants and scholarships are actually a relatively new commodity. With the increase is educational success having been lower than the last 25 years, each state (specifically in the United States, but also in districts around the globe) has installed new programs. These programs have led to the creation of opportunity grants and scholarships to allow a more accessible door to individuals who may not be able to hold a 3.0. consistent G.P.A. Or it depends on living situations and community districts that may be suffering more than others.

The official definition for an opportunity with a grant or scholarship is a program that will cover your tuition, fees, and on-campus housing and meals at one of our Partner Colleges up to a maximum of $80,000 for a bachelor’s degree. The award becomes renewable each year. All an individual has to do is simply meet the continuing eligibility criteria, followed by including continuous full-time enrollment. This allows for an easier accessibility rate and increases educational success by 100%.

However, the big difference is simply going through which grants are meant for advanced researchers, scientists, or doctoral candidates. The reason there are opportunity grants for individuals who have already gained a higher education is that the truth of the matter is that the more an individual climbs for higher education the more expensive everything becomes. This means textbooks, research equipment, and any excess resources needed to fulfill a high grade to successfully pass that grade. This is why corporations also have created opportunity grants and scholarships for students because it’s corporations who help to create some of the equipment needed such as a textbook publishing company, the Texas calculator company, and so on.

The last thing that needs to be noted for students and adults who intend to apply for an opportunity grant or scholarship is to have all of their transcript information. That means being able to show a steady G.P.A. that hasn’t dropped too much, and a consistent attendance since that is looked at heavily when considering applicants. Afterward, a student or adult going back to school can successfully acquire an opportunity grant or scholarship to lead a progressive and higher education future.